The Department of Veterans Affairs softly changed the sanction of its aesculapian halfway successful Richmond, Virginia, past week, relegating Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire to history.
Executive Director J. Ronald Johnson notified section chairs that the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center is present the Richmond VA Medical Center.
The aesculapian halfway was the lone large VA installation named for a subordinate of the Confederacy.
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The alteration came aft a petition by Rep. Donald McEachin, who represented the territory that included the hospital. McEachin died past November aft battling crab for 9 years.
In a missive to McEachin's bureau Dec. 27, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said helium had the authority, by law, to alteration the sanction of the infirmary to bespeak its geographic determination and decided to bash truthful astatine the petition of "veterans, employees and assemblage members."
"After sizeable treatment and reappraisal of the contented ... I person decided to rename the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center to the Richmond VA Medical Center," McDonough said successful a Jan. 19 release. "VA volition proceed to service each veterans with dignity and respect astatine this installation and each facility."
McGuire is known to Civil War historians arsenic the doc who treated Stonewall Jackson aft the archetypal Battle of Manassas and amputated his limb successful an effort to prevention his life. But helium besides was instrumental successful processing conventions for treating aesculapian unit arsenic noncombatants -- protocols that were aboriginal integrated into the Geneva Conventions and the bedrock rule of the American Red Cross and different aesculapian work organizations.
He was staunchly opposed to voting rights for Black Americans his full beingness and opposed the merchandise from slavery of a contention helium considered inferior -- opinions helium expressed successful a publication helium wrote successful his aboriginal years.
In the aftermath of the nationwide protests astir radical favoritism pursuing the decease of George Floyd successful May 2020, McGuire's bequest and the honoring of Confederate officers by applying their names to salient institutions came nether scrutiny. Virginia Commonwealth University, a schoolhouse connected which the Medical School of Virginia was established, successful part, by McGuire, removed plaques, signs and a bust honoring him astatine its facilities.
Later that summer, McGuire descendants Alice McGuire Massie, Hunter Holmes McGuire III and William Reed McGuire published a file successful the Richmond Times-Dispatch supporting removal of memorials to their ancestor, but added that they anticipation "history volition justice McGuire, a surgeon, based connected his implicit beingness and contributions."
"Arguably the astir important bequest of McGuire was his groundbreaking enactment to humanize warfare and redefine however captured subject doctors and nurses should beryllium treated successful wartime," they wrote.
But, they said, "the household understands that statues and buildings honoring Confederate leaders person caused symptom to chap Americans and we enactment the removal of the McGuire memorials."
Most VA facilities are named for their location, with a fewer twelve honoring veterans oregon longtime VA employees. Several are named for erstwhile lawmakers, including a fistful who person drawn disapproval for their ties to radical segregation.
Carl Vinson, James Haley, John McClellan and Overton Brooks -- whose names grace VA aesculapian centers -- were signatories to the Southern Manifesto, a papers drafted successful effect to Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court determination that recovered schoolhouse segregation unconstitutional.
In his memo to staff, Johnson said that "changes are constant," but the installation volition beryllium "resolute successful our efforts to supply safe, reliable, prime attraction and enactment to our Veterans, caregivers, and household members, arsenic we ever have."
"As Virginians and Americans, we person overmuch to beryllium arrogant of regarding our past, present, and future. We volition proceed to bash our champion to uphold the values of our ideology arsenic each procreation places its stamp upon its history," Johnson wrote.
The VA aesculapian installation successful Richmond is known for its spinal cord wounded center, advancements successful amputation and prosthetics, and attraction for traumatic encephalon injuries. It serves much than 77,000 veterans each year, with an operating fund of $950 million.
As the flagship installation successful the Central VA Health Care System, it is portion of a radical of attraction facilities successful Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, Emporia and Henrico, Virginia.
The sanction alteration comes arsenic the Department of Defense moves guardant with stripping the honors to Confederate officers, soldiers and sailors from large installations and lesser-known buildings and monuments.
-- Patricia Kime tin beryllium reached astatine Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her connected Twitter @patriciakime.
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